Outsystems blog

A Developer Diary: Justin James on the Agile Platform Service Studio

Mike Jones - May 25, 2010 - 1 min read

There's no better way to try technology out than to build a real-lifeapplication with it. Taking an idea for a product and developing it is a great way to understand the value and shortcomings of any new tool.

This is exactly what Justin James decided to do with the Agile Platform and he's journaling his experience of developing his new web app, Rat Catcher, in a series of diary entries that are being published in Tech Republic. You can check out his first set of entries: Diary #1, Diary #2.

The following is an excerpt from Justin's latest experience using the Agile Platform in Diary #3 where he starts by saying:

"The Agile Platform is composed of four major pieces: Service Studio, Integration Studio, Service Center, and the Agile Network. I spend nearly all of my time in Service Studio, which is where the application and data modeling occur, as well as application debugging. You can also publish your application to a server from Service Studio. While Service Studio is an IDE, it uses a paradigm that is very different from any IDE that I have ever used. The three major functions in Service Studio are data modeling, process modeling, and screen design."

He goes on to describe his first reactions, some of the difficulties he encountered, and how he managed to change his developer's paradigm to really make the most of the Agile Platform. Although a bit technical for some of our business minded readers, I think our developer base will find these articles very interesting.

I'll be curious to see what Justin thinks of version 5.1's new functionality (watch this space for more info on this upcoming release!) For example, the new wizards that will help build the screens from the data model even faster. Justin also hits on an advanced detail when he talks about the "late load" AJAX component, which admittedly was a bit of an odd pattern, and something our developers have fixed in 5.1.

So, this goes out to all of you professional developers; please share your experiences and tell other readers what you like and don't about working with the Agile Platform. What do you think of Justin's take on the platform? Does it match your initial experiences?

Mike Jones

Mike is a professed 'hater' of complexity. He has been in the IT industry since the mid 80's where he learned his technical skills at EDS and Texas Instruments. He believes there is a simpler way for IT professionals to deliver business value that requires a pragmatic mix of agile methods and application development tools.